TIMELESS TENNESSEE TRAVELS (Copy) - Page Text Content

1: June 11th, 2010 Off we go on our very first family road trip, to good Ole' Tennessee! We'll be coming around the mountains!

2: Spring Break Susie meets Tom and Evan on the East coast for a friend, family and college tour. In DC, we stay with Bill & Janet . We also see Joan, Laurie & Larry and Harriet. We then visit Big D & Onie in York.

4: The Roadtrip | Phenomenal roadtrip! Kids entertained themselves nonstop without any whining! Didn't even asked for any movies! They thought it was a cool adventure! Turned out to be better than traveling by plane!

5: Second day on the road! Excitement builds up! Stopped in Metropolis, IL. - Superman's hometown! Arrived to our first destination - Bluff City, TN - early in the eve to stay with Aunt Jane! | Clayton took the above picture all by himself!

7: The Grandfather Mountain | Trekking thru the beautiful Grandfather Mountain. A gorgeous natural habitat Zoo for all the critters living there!

10: Spring Break Susie meets Tom and Evan on the East coast for a friend, family and college tour. In DC, we stay with Bill & Janet . We also see Joan, Laurie & Larry and Harriet. We then visit Big D & Onie in York.

12: Visits to UVA & Duke After a nice stop in York, we drive to UVA & Duke. We also drop by UNC. The town of Durham is nothing to write home about but Chapel Hill is quaint and we have an excellent lobster dinner at Squids to celebrate Evan's terrific SAT scores. | This store reminds me of A & E

16: The Adventures of Rock Climbing! The kids actually wanted to stay longer just to play with all these huge boulders! It was a thrill for them to climb to the tippy top of a boulder! | Boulders

18: It was WINDY crossing the Mile High Swinging Bridge! Although climbing to the top was scary, the view was simply magnificent! | Tippy Top . . .

19: Topped the day with mountains and ended the day with tunnels! Kids didn't get very far into the Bristol Caves, they were too scared. Poor sweeties. Kids waited outside with Mom while Dad and Aunt Jane explored the wonders of the underworld. | to Tunnels

20: Steele Creek

21: A beautiful public park that offered Tennessee transportation of all types! Enjoyed the little train ride and the paddleboats! It was a very HOT day! We sweated so much that our clothes were soaked through! Ironically couldn't jump in the lake to cool off!

22: Pigeon Forge, TN

23: June 15th - We finally arrived to the highlight of our entire roadtrip - Pigeon Forge, TN! First stopped for lunch at a quaint restaurant in Old Mill. It was just a block from the Condo! Pretty much everything could be accessed within a walking distance from the Condo! The Condo was everything we wanted and more! It was so comfortable!

24: Splish 'n . . . | The Condo pool was better than going to a water theme park! The slide was amazingly FAST! Whoosh! It even had a mini lazy river! All of us LOVED this! Kids never got tired of it!

25: Splash! | We made sure we swam during our breaks everyday that we were there. The days were hot and it was a great way to cool off!

26: Cirque De Chine | Smoky Mountain Palace | Topped our first evening in Pigeon Forge/Sevierville with this incredible show displaying an extravagant exposition of skill, grace, romance and illusion featuring some of China's best acrobatic troupes! The kids were mesmerized, enthralled and captivated! An amazing show of unbelieveable talent!

28: Parrot Mountain | We so LOVED this place! An aviary for gorgeous parrots! Never saw so many in one place! This was by far our favorite place to visit! Even mom was happy to be pooped on in her hair! There was just too much vibrant, vivid, mesmerizing colors surrounding her to hold any grudges that the pooping incident was immediately forgiven!

30: Parrot Mountain | & Gardens

31: This place really delighted, tickled and captivated us! We just loved all the birds! It was fun feeding, petting and holding them, galores of them! The amazing thing after this portion was that there was still more to come . . . more smiles, colors, and delight!!

32: Birds, Birds . . .

33: . . . .and more Birds!

34: Chow and Plow . . .

35: The Wishing Well | After leaving the birds, grabbed lunch at Applewood - YUM! Then plowed our way thru Pigeon Forge with bumper boats, go carts, airplanes and trains! | Making a wish at Applewood's beautiful wishing well!

36: Dollywood | Smoky Mountain Family Adventure | The weather was unbelieveably HOT! Despite the heatwave, we managed to have a great time exploring and playing at Dollywood! The kids loved driving their own cars, that they had to do them several times! Cool Dudes and Dudettes driving!

39: We had so much fun in the world of Ripley's. However, we did not get far into the Ripley's Believe It or Not. The kids got scared because we were going downward, some places were dark. The farthest we got to was a lucky spot of discovering that the World's Largest Cruise Ship was the one that Mom and Dad cruised on in 2007!

40: Making Memories Last Longer . . . | Our last night in Pigeon Forge! Making the most of it - eating out, swimming, and sleeping soundly in a cozy condo. Kids were worn out every evening. They always slept with their favorite stuffed animal of the day! Got up early the next morning to head to Nashville, TN to visit the Barbershop Harmony Society Headquarters and Mom's high school classmate. Was supposed to go to the Aquarium Restaurant for lunch, but it suffered damages from the recent floods. The day in Tune Town recorded temps of 105! We had enough of the heat by then!

41: . . . Tune Town . . . | Drove by and saw this Cat & Dog Store! Had enough time to stop by and check it out! Kids were delighted to see oodles of cats roaming freely in the store, all waiting to be adopted! Didn't leave the store without buying something - a cute little outfit for the family dog.

42: The Andersons & Hiningers | Had a really nice visit with Mom's high school classmate and his family. The visit was way too short! It was a great way to end the Timeless Tennessee Travels Adventure! The roadtrip back home was phenomenal, again not a whine out of the kids! Traveling by car is a definite must for future adventures! June 20, 2010